Politics meets cinema at the Berlinale

“The Private is political” – this is the Motto of Berlin-based film is festival in 2019. Not only the private dramas that have a political Background, are meant. The competition is also hard-hitting political cinema is.

Three films, three politics in the cinema at the Berlin film festival to 2019. The Berlinale has always been regarded as the most political among the major film festivals in the world. The reason for this is, among other things, in the history: a Long time, the Berlinale was the Festival of the West and the East. To beat the times of the Cold war, when the wall still stood, the Berlin film festival and the films screened at the cultural bridges for filmmakers and for the audience.

A political Festival in the globalised world of today

The reputation has defended the Festival, even if the world has changed. In the next series of the Berlinale, in the Forum and Panorama, are traditionally shown a lot of political films, especially documentaries. But also in the competition films again and again, the policy and take time to make history. It is also in this year.

Dick Cheney and his wife Lynn – a married couple the film with Macbeth-own types of equip

“The Private is political” was the slogan of the festival this year, had the Berlinale announced-in-chief Dieter Kosslick in the run-up to, and in these days of the three films that prove this Theory well. Spectacular is the Premiere of “Vice”. In the U.S. the Film is currently all the rage, because the main actor Christian Bale in the role of former U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, all international actors-cleared prices and as a hot Oscar nominee is traded. Bale is in this year, almost the only Hollywood Superstar to offer the Festival on the Red carpet.

Agent Thriller from Israel, who also plays in Germany

But also the movie “The Operative” by the Israeli Director Yuval Adler has a decidedly political cinema, digging it deep in the coils of the middle East conflict and the problems of the Middle East, tells the story of the Israelis and the Iranians, Germans, British and Americans, of Terror and espionage.

Acclaimed Berlinale guest from Hollywood: Christian Bale

Furthest away from the classical political cinema of the Turkish competition entry “Kiz Kardesler” (“A Tale of Three Sisters on the move”), a story from the Anatolian province, which is, among other things, of gender relations. But even here, the audience knows quickly: The Patriarchal society as presented by Director Emin Alper, fraught with political explosives – though perhaps only in the near future.

Verruchter politicians: US Vice-President Dick Cheney

Three Times, politics and Film, three also aesthetically quite different approaches to the subject on the canvas. “Vice” by Director Adam McKay offers, basically, a classic politician-a film biography, the life and work of American politician Dick Cheney retold – classic-but only in the sense of action and interpretation. Since McKay’s Film moves very close to the series “House of Cards”: Dick Cheney (Christian Bale) is the demonic appearance of a Frank Underwood.

Shortly after the attack on the World Trade Center: the couple with Cheney in “Vice”

Cheney, from 2001 to 2009 under George W. Bush immensely powerful “Vice”, is considered by many experts today as the actual mastermind of the U.S. policy of those years. McKay introduces him to us as a cunning puppet master who holds the strings in Washington in the Hand, and the political puppets dance – also his boss, the President. That Cheney was going on ruthless, private (economic) interests with political Association, appoint the Director and the book quite clearly.

As long as Hollywood is still such a critical political-films, the American cinema, no Worries.

In the footsteps of Michael Moore

Interesting, especially the style of “Vice”. Here are America’s best-known documentary film Director Michael Moore seems to have his tracks in the film leave. The joke, the satirical sharpness in picture and sound, all of this is reminiscent of Moore’s scathing film satires to US politics and society.

Diane Kruger as a Mossad agent in “The Operative”

In classic spy-movie Terrain, the Israeli Director Yuval Adler and moves when he sends a Mossad agent (played by the German Hollywood Star Diane Kruger) to Tehran, Israel, and Germany. He had no Film to James Bond-style, in the sense, said Yuval in Berlin and if you are looking for role models, it is also a popular US series.

If Kruger with the head strips of cloth through Tehran, then this is strongly reminiscent of Carrie Mathison in the TV series “Homeland”. And here, too, are human and therefore highly moral conflicts, Thinking about Good and Evil and the ever-present question of the extent to which his innocence may preserve the Job of an agent, which is in the foreground of the film.

The Team of “The Operative” at the Berlinale-Premiere

Views in the province

“A Tale of Sisters,” by contrast, the political theater is in a rather profound sense. Here it is the “Private”, maybe even into the Political result is that is being addressed. Three sisters in an Anatolian village: All three return from the city with bad experiences back to the village, only the father and the husband of the oldest daughter still living in the house. The conflicts explode.

Director Emin Alper shows the lives of three women in a strictly male-dominated world. You have the advantage, although with each other freedoms and talk surprisingly open, but the fundamental role of distribution is hardly shaken. That will not always be so, that could also change in the Central Anatolian province of once, this is a recognition of this silent film, the power of the repressed rage of the female protagonists on the subject.

“A Tale of Three Sisters” reveals encrusted family structures

All three of the films at the Berlinale in the competition, “Vice” and “The Operative”, however, “non-competitive”, so you can’t win any prizes at the end of the Berlinale. A strange Festival Statute, the no spectator and no one in the world understands more. Why not run these movies like so many others at the Berlinale in one of the many in addition to rows? But this is obviously the Festival of politics and sometimes look even harder to by than the world politics.